Easter Weekend Starts Early As Crowds Invade Beaches

April 4, 1985|By Pat LaMee of The Sentinel Staff

NEW SMYRNA BEACH — Easter weekend traditionally draws record crowds to the beach and this year the invasion has started early in Volusia County.

''We've got larger crowds and they're spending money,'' said Franklin Raulerson at Kents Stand, south of Flagler Avenue. ''We're having great weather and the people are pouring in . . . last Sunday was wild.''

Several large motels in Cocoa Beach in Brevard County say they are already booked solid for the Easter weekend. A spokesman at the Holiday Inn said they are turning away requests for reservations and that other motels are doing the same thing.

A spokeswoman for the Cocoa Beach Area Chamber of Commerce said even in this very busy season, smaller hotels usually will have openings.

Hotel-motel managers in New Smyrna Beach say they are turning people away mainly because so many reservations were made last year.

''We're full up and have been booked for three or four months,'' said a spokesman for the Islander Beach Club Resort, 1601 S. Atlantic Ave. ''We have a lot of visitors from Central Florida staying for three or four days, but about half our people are tourists from out of state who made reservations last year and will stay a week or two.''

Daytona Beach, 15 miles north of New Smyrna, reported peak crowds last month with Bike Week and spring break.

''We reached our peak the week of March 17,'' said Alex Bray of the Daytona Beach Chamber of Commerce. ''Our occupancy definitely is up over last year -- by about five percent -- but things are beginning to taper off. We'll have our last surge in the next week or so after Easter.''

Part of the increase in activity was because of the expenditure of $100,000 in advertising by the Halifax Area Advertising Authority, he said. The group increased its efforts to lure college students from the Northeast and Midwest by spending more than three times the amount it did the previous year.

Gary Brown, president of the Hotel-Motel Association of Daytona Beach, said the crowds are on hand but not in the anticipated numbers.

''It's going to be a good Easter but not a great one,'' he said. ''We still have vacancies but we might be full by Friday night.'' He said Daytona Beach crowds had been reduced by reports of 400,000 collegians in town.

''I'm sure we didn't reach that number, but family groups tend to stay away from areas where they think there will be chaos,'' he said.

New Smyrna Beach police say they are prepared for the annual crunch of sunbathers and surfers who spend most of Easter weekend at the ''World's Safest Bathing Beach.''

There has been heavy activity throughout the city this week, Police Capt. Shelly Decker said, but no major problems or complaints despite the steady stream of cars on local streets and causeways.

Central Florida visitors will be able to take advantage of the city's one- way west traffic on Sunday if the weather remains sunny and warm, city officials said. Motorists trying to leave the oceanfront can get on Third Avenue and form two lanes west to the South Causeway and bridge and onto four- laned Lytle Avenue.

The special traffic plan, which takes cars out of the city at a rapid pace, generally clears the beach in two hours by getting them out to four-laned State Road 44, officials said.